It could fill the empty accounts, glue the fragmented system together and ideally make pensions much more portable.

ECONOMIST: Pensions

The most extreme danger would be if Spain and Italy are cut off from international markets and bank depositors across the euro-zone periphery start to empty accounts, fearing their deposits might be next to be redenominated in national currencies.

WSJ: Europe Girds for Greek Exit

The budget proposal would require most heirs, other than widows or widowers, to empty retirement accounts within five years.

WSJ: Family Value: New Hazards for Estate Plans

On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine that the Cypriots will not empty their accounts as soon as they get an opportunity.

WSJ: Greek Stocks Slump; Investors Play Catch Up on Cyprus Worries

In Mexico lucrative celebrity-kidnaps have been replaced by grabs of ordinary victims, who are taken to cashpoints to empty their bank accounts.

ECONOMIST: Hostages

People know that if they empty their savings accounts or cut back on their 401(k) payments, they may never get that money back--precisely because they have a hard time saving in the first place.

FORBES: Bitter Money And Christmas Clubs

And rather than pay benefits out of a pot of past contributions, notional accounts remain empty, leaving pensions to be financed from current taxes, sometimes supplemented by a central trust fund.

ECONOMIST: China is beginning to face up to its pension problems

The greater point is that if the federal government loses some of our Social Security savings, or simply achieves lousy returns, we have no legal right to empty our Social Security accounts in favor of outside managers.

FORBES: Demystifying The Naively Demonized Symbol That Is Wall Street

By 2007, he said his bank accounts were largely empty.

WSJ: Keeping Cool With (Mega) Millions

The all-party committee of MPs, the Public Accounts Committee, said more money should go towards "protecting towns and cities, rather than empty fields".

BBC: NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Flood defences 'lack maintenance'